


Like Real People Do

by chaotic-lawful (sleepy_cryptid)



Series: Wolf and Sun [1]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Depression, Eventual Happy Ending, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Mutual Respect and Consent, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Rating May Change, Slow Burn, Survivor Guilt, Texting, The Number Neighbor AU no one asked for, Therapy, frank conversations about mental health, seriously how have they not crossed paths in their mutual social circle
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-09
Updated: 2020-04-09
Packaged: 2021-03-01 22:47:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,900
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23554780
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sleepy_cryptid/pseuds/chaotic-lawful
Summary: "This silly exchange was born of an internet fad that would fade as quickly as it had spawned. She’d lose interest eventually, Solas reasoned, or he would. They would go about their lives with the memory of their unlikely meeting shelved somewhere in the back of the mind before eventually being forgotten altogether. As far as indulgences went this one seemed harmless."
Relationships: Female Inquisitor/Solas (Dragon Age), Female Lavellan/Solas, Female Mage Lavellan/Solas
Series: Wolf and Sun [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1695322
Comments: 5
Kudos: 18





	Like Real People Do

**Author's Note:**

> I got to talk to my number neighbor. It didn't go anything like this.

The therapist she’d been assigned too was nice enough. A human, Marcher from the accent, with a generic, professional smile. He even had a plaque on his desk with his name on it: Rhys Trevelyan.

His entire demeanor was pleasant; down to his black slacks and a blue button-down, the subtle scent of his cologne, to the leather journal that sat open in his lap every session.

Pleasant, unassuming, unthreatening. 

Well, as much as a templar could be anyway. Just because he didn’t wear the sword of mercy didn’t mean he’d ever put it down. (Which he hadn’t, she could feel the lyrium in his blood from across the room, but that was neither here nor there.) But other than that he was the picture of professionalism. 

She couldn’t stand him.

“How are things, Fen’nas?”

For a moment she seriously considered getting up and leaving. He started every session with that question. She’d added it to the growing list of things she’d come to hate.

How did someone in her position answer such a basic question? She could lie through her teeth. Spin him a tale that would make Varric proud. Always tempting, but always dismissed as too much effort. 

There was the generic “I’m fine.” The universal default answer, the polite answer. It had the magic of being both a gentle and meaningless pleasantry and the sucker punch of “don’t bother me, don’t ask, it’s none of your fucking business.”

Then there was the honest answer. The absolute truth, her shredded heart laid bare and bleeding in the too-small room with its crap lighting and a desk that was suspiciously tidy. She could spill the constant roiling turmoil that turned her guts into knots leaving no room to keep food down. She could word vomit for hours about the stress and guilt that plagued her night and day and all the hours in between. She could collapse in tears onto the ugly orange-beige carpet sobbing about how she can’t sleep without seeing his face as he’s dragged away by those _fucking animals -_

“Fine.”

He smiled. Pleasantly generic as the rest of him. He always asked, had to ask, but there was nothing left for Fen’nas to say. 

The worst of it was that she wanted to be normal. She’d do anything to smile again for even a moment and mean it. Failing that, just being able to look Rhys in the eyes for a second. Just a second to look and see those pleasant baby blue eyes. No blood. No severed arm. No screams from her partner -

“In our last session, we discussed you starting to branch out. How has that gone?”

More like he talked at her. There’d been no agreement or anything of the sort from her end. He knew it. She knew it. But it was either this or Greenfell. A snowball had a better chance in the Western Approach than her ever setting foot back in that place.

“Fine.

There’s a large window behind him, with the blinds open wide to let in the weak autumn sunlight. The glass wasn’t too thick. Even in her foot wraps she could probably just kick her way through it in a pinch. The inevitable cuts would hurt like a bitch though. If that wasn’t enough to dissuade her, then there was the fact that Templars tended to frown on mages being in the same vicinity as blood of any kind outside of veins. 

A solid stone fist would take out the window, along with most of the wall. Overkill? Definitely, but it was quicker than gunning for the door.

The snag to that plan was being able to cast while Rhys was distracted. She’d have to be fast to disable him before he could snap out a Smite. 

Ideally, she’d attempt a rear approach. Templars didn’t like showing their backs so the odds of that ever happening here were slim to none. But if he did it’d be her first choice.

Rhys was larger than her with more upper body strength and the benefit of reach. Her smaller size couldn’t compete in straight-up melee, but she was faster and more flexible. In a perfect world, she’d stealth drop from above first, but she could still make it work if she snuck up behind him. Check his shoulder to prevent him from turning, then get her hands to his chin and the base of the skull. Neck-snap. Wham bam thank you, ma’am.

A front approach would be riskier, but again, not impossible. There would only be a brief window for her to throw out a spell to catch him off guard. Ice maybe, or maybe entropy? She’d always been shite with entropy. So, ice. He didn’t need to be solid, just paralyzed. A sharp blast of frost would make his muscles seize, allowing her to check and grab his shoulder and get her arm around his throat. Grip the jaw firmly followed by a single-arm neck-snap.

She looked down at her lap, flexing the fingers of her remaining hand on her jean-clad thigh.

It was probably a good idea they’d assigned her to him. If a mage of her caliber was going to snap on some random shrink, there’d be nothing left of the poor sod. Which going off of her idle homicidal musings was probably more than likely. 

Thus, Rhys.

Practically perfect and perfectly pleasant Rhys.

_Ugh._

“You mentioned going to see a friend. Dorian, I believe you said his name was?”

He knew very well what his name was. It was all written down in his little journal. 

“Yes.”

“How was your visit?”

Visit? More like he and Bull broke into her apartment with Blackwall and the Chargers. They’d brought enough groceries to feed an army and a shocking amount of alcohol and ‘root. In one evening they’d scrubbed her place from top to bottom, done the mountain of laundry, and meal prepped for the next week. For a few perfect, glorious hours they’d made sure she was firmly present in the Here and Now, while still capturing the mayhem in the better days of Before.

Before. The big looming Before. 

Was that what her life was chronicled now? Fen’nas, born Monday, the 29th of Cloudreach 19:15 Digital, Before Seheron. Should have died 16th of Kingsway 19:40 Digital, After Seheron.

A year later and she couldn’t shake the feeling like she already had. Her body just hadn’t caught up yet. 

“Fine.”

He uncapped his pen to jot something down. Rhys had realized some sessions back that she could read his notes upside down. He’d changed pens, from black ink to blue, and wrote smaller, tighter letters. More difficult to read but not impossible.

 _Progress_. It was always progress. Translation: she wasn’t making any. 

Fen’nas sighed and glanced at the clock on the computer behind him. Only 47 more minutes to go.

* * *

“You’ve been talking to your what now?”

Fen’nas stared at Sera, her glass of juice forgotten in her hand. She hadn’t been home ten minutes when the younger elf had shown up out of the blue to drag her back down the street to the Herald’s Rest. The bar was full to bursting with patrons flooding in for the cheap beer and Monday night football plastered on every screen. 

“My number neighbor,” Sera repeated, tapping her half-chewed toothpick against her lips. “You know, the person who has the same number as you except for the last one. It’s just a bit of fun, yeah? Nothing serious.”

“Right, I understand the concept. But _why_ are you telling me this?”

She rolled her eyes. “Because you’re starting to turn into some weird hermit who doesn’t remember how to talk to people. It’s starting to freak me out. Leave you alone too long and you’ll probably bust out in demons or some shite.” She shuddered. 

“I talk to people!”

“I mean ‘people’ people, not like the ones too busy pissing magic to act normal,” she said, drawing out the last word. 

Fen’nas glanced up at the ceiling as if praying for strength. She let go of the glass in favor of propping her chin on her fist. “You mean mages?”

“That’s what I said!”

“You do realize I’m also a mage.” Fen'nas knew she knew - she’d made a big fuss about it in the early days of their acquaintance.

“You’re one of the good ones though. Not trying to cram it where it’s not wanted." She pulled the toothpick she'd been chewing out of her mouth to stab in her direction. "Point is, you need more friends.”

“I do have friends -”

“Magic pissers and elfy elves don’t count.” Sera pulled a face. “You spend too much time around them and next thing you know you’ll be yelling ‘Elvhen Glory’ or some rubbish and running through the trees without your breeches.”

“Dalish don’t run naked through the woods,” she replied Then, “Well, not usually. The shapeshifters might.”

“Ugh. See? That’s what I’m talking about. Bloody unnatural is what it is. And they’re too busy with their heads shoved up a thousand years ago to see it.”

Wordlessly, Fen’nas pointed to her vallaslin.

She gave a dismissive wave of her hand. “Yeah, but you’re not like them though are you?”

That stung. She took a sip of her drink, now gone warm, and closed her eyes. It wasn't like she was wrong. It'd been ages since she'd spoken with anyone from the clan, and even longer since her last visit. The last time she'd seen her Keeper was when she'd shown up for her graduation from Officer Candidate School. A whole other lifetime ago it felt like.

She pinched the bridge of her nose. “I know I’ve been a bad friend lately, Sera, but believe me when I say I’m trying.”

“Piss." Sea blanched. "That's not what I - No. Listen it’s like this,” she paused, her tone uncharacteristically serious.

Her eyebrows rose. Sera didn’t _do_ serious.

“You’ve been different since you got back, which makes sense I guess. Shit up there went tits up -“

She snorted. “That’s one way to put it."

“- so yeah, you came back in a bad way. Darkspawn, magisters, all that big bad crap, it would mess anyone up. Thing is, we all want to help you, but you need something we can’t give you.” 

Of all the things she could have said, that wasn’t one she would have expected.

Maker, she really must be doing worse than she thought if Sera was being insightful. Or as insightful as she could be. Sometimes Cole was less confusing. But she understood the sentiment.

“....that almost made sense.”

Sera cackled, throwing her chewed toothpick over her shoulder to replace it with another. “I know right? Scary, innit.”

“Very.” Fen’nas drained her glass and set it to the side. “So this plan of yours to find me a new friend involves this number neighbor thing?”

She nodded. “Exactly.”

“And if it doesn’t work out -“

“It will.”

“ _If_ it doesn’t, what then?”

Sera shrugged. “Doesn’t matter.”

“Why not?”

“Because it will.”

“I don’t think that’s how it works.”

“Sure it does,” Sera answered, pursing her lips. The problem is you think too much and focus on everything that can go wrong. If you don’t think about the bad, then the good works out better.”

Fen’nas caught Cabot’s eye and motioned for another drink. “This plan of yours could use some work,” she said with a quiet laugh as he swapped out her empty glass. 

“What? Things go sideways if you think too hard.”

The bar erupted in an equal split of cheers and boos, effectively drowning out anything she would have said. Sera slipped out of her chair going Maker only knew where leaving her alone. 

She pulled out her phone, out of habit more than anything rather than for any specific reason. She checked the time and browsed through her emails even though she’d already done so just that morning. Mindless, habitual scrolling. 

Her phone beeped.

_Battery 20%_

_Please charge now._

Fenedhis. She knew she should have brought the charger. 

She went to slide it into her pocket when Sera deigned to reappear. Quick as a snake she reached across and snatched the device from her fingers, ignoring her indignant _hey!_

“How do you even know the pin?” Fen’nas complained as Sera unlocked the screen to pull up the messaging app. 

“What, like its hard? Not important.” Her thumbs flew over the keyboard as she tapped in the number for her neighbor. 

“Then tell me why of all things to make me socialize,” her nose wrinkled on the last word, “You chose this particular method?”

Sera didn’t look up, still busy mashing buttons. “Tadwinks.”

Tadwinks? What in the world was a - ah. Clarity turned swiftly to irritation.

“Dagna is your number neighbor?”

“Mhm.”

“Sera, if this is some attempt to get me to start dating -“

“Andraste’s tits, no!” She shot her a filthy look. “It’s not like that. And even if it was, so what? It’s better than focusing on the bad shite.”

“It’s not that easy.”

“It should be.” Sera shoved the phone back across the table. “Past is past, dead is dead. No changing it, no matter how much the Dalish whinge about it. Same with everything else.” 

Fen’nas flinched. 

“Fuck, I didn’t mean that the way it sounded.”

“You did,” she answered slowly. “But I appreciate your honesty. You’re right, we can’t change the past, but sometimes it takes longer to put it to rest.”

She stood, shrugging into her coat. “Thanks for getting me out of the house. It was good to see you, lethallan.”

“Oh, go twang your ears,” she grumbled before turning to yell at someone across the room. 

Outside was much cooler, the breeze a welcome respite against her overheated skin. The sun had fully set, giving way to stars just beginning to peek out against the dark sky. 

She hadn’t lied; it did feel good to be outside of the house. It’s just that she didn’t feel like she had anywhere to go. Neither did she want to inflict herself and her issues on her friends.

Then again, she hadn’t given them much a chance for her try. Every interaction since she’d been released from Greenfell had been initiated by them. Phone calls, invitations to go out, regular checking in. They were worried about her. She knew they were. 

She thunked her head against the brick. Creators, she had a talent for fucking things up.

The phone buzzed. She fished it out.

_Battery 10%_

_Please charge now._

Great. It wouldn’t last the walk home. She went to stow it away again when she paused. She swiped the glass with her thumb, then tapped open the messenger app. 

_-8:02 pm_

_hey number neighbor!_

_there’s this thing on the internet going around where people send a text to the person with the same number_

_except the last number is either one more or less_

_in this case your number is one less than mine_

_so hi neighbor!_

That didn’t sound like Sera at all. For one, all of the words were spelled out. More tellingly was the lack of emojis, that made up most of her messages.

‘Graffiti for your phone! Brilliant, innit?’ She’d said once to an exasperated Dorian. 

It sounded a lot like how she texted. 

“Well, shit.”

She gave the messages a long look before pulling up the keyboard. 

_-8:12 pm_

_It’s okay if you don’t respond_

_Just thought it would be fun_

_ir abelas_

The wind picked up, tugging at the loose tendrils of her hair. She shoved it back, reaching automatically for the hair tie around her wrist -

Her right hand hovered over the empty air where her left one used to be.

Almost a year later and she still caught herself in moments like these. 

Tears burned her eyes and she squeezed them shut, unwilling to let them fall. She was better than this. She was stronger than this. It was just an arm, it wasn’t like her life was over without it -

_She threw herself over what was left of the Warden her staff clenched tightly in her right hand as she reached for him, the fingers of her left hand just barely brushing his outstretched one -_

She thudded her head against the wall again, twice more, harder each time. 

“It should’ve been you, you bastard,” she gritted out. “Why the fuck wasn’t it you?” 

Silence. The same silence there was every time she asked. 

Her phone buzzed. 

She wiped her face and pulled it out. 

_Unknown - 8:15 pm_

_No harm done._

_It was simply a surprise._

Oh. 

Alright then.

Her thumb hovered over the keyboard as she dithered on what to say. 

_-8:17 pm_

_A good one I hope_

_The last time I surprised someone I got a tongue lashing as fierce as the one from my keeper when my brother and i got into the_ _manise_ _and broke the aravel_

_almost like being home again lol_

She hit send and instantly regretted it. Why did she say that? Too much information for a stranger who probably at this point thought she was insane. Or drunk. Or both. 

There wasn’t much time to give it much thought as her attention was diverted to the three little dots that suddenly starting jumping over the text bar. They were typing. 

Well, shit. 

**Author's Note:**

> https://youtu.be/LD9RqOevOpw
> 
> Full disclosure: I am not Sera's biggest fan. So getting in her head is hard. How did I do?
> 
> Lethallan: Clan mate. An endearment for either clan mates or friends who are so close to you, that they are like family.


End file.
